Entertainment

Newspapers: 5 Ways to Avoid Extinction

Woody Lewis is a Social Media Strategist and Web Architect. He authors a blog at woodylewis.com about social media strategy for newspapers.

I recently wrote about newspapers using social media to save the industry. Since then, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed its last hardcopy edition. A small group of workers will continue to publish the “paper” online. It’s not the first big-city daily to disappear from the news stands, and the list grows longer every week. After 174 years of daily publication, the Ann Arbor News announced that it will close in July. A new company called AnnArbor.com will publish a daily edition online, and put out a print edition twice a week.

In a post titled “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,” Clay Shirky, who teaches interactive telecommunications at New York University, makes what many would consider a heretical statement: “Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.” It’s clear the newspaper business will never be the same. Here are five best practices publishers should consider to increase their odds of survival:

1. Embrace chaos

The first step in managing uncertainty is to admit its influence. In the context of business, particularly in a mature industry, this means preparing for a wide range of outcomes, including the very real possibility that revenue will shrink, not grow. Chaos can be traumatic for the unimaginative, but abandoning the center of gravity can be a lifesaver. Believing in the sanctity of newspapers will not improve their chances. Random events, driven by technology and social use patterns, will shape the future.

Shirky says “With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data.” Newspapers will not survive without adapting, a process that starts in the executive suite. Each publisher must find an advocate, in-house or brought in from the outside, who has no investment in the status quo. That person must be empowered to suggest and help implement radical change. This is no longer about cute Web projects. Newspapers are in a Darwinian free-for-all, and only the fittest will survive.

2. Devise a new strategy that emphasizes alliances and collaboration

The New York Times had to sell a stake to a Mexican billionaire, and it now rents an office building it used to own. These are traditional partnerships that some would call shotgun marriages, but the private sector might not be the best place to find an alliance. Foundations and NGOs, especially those with a social agenda, might offer an alternative. At the very least, collaborating with such organizations might bring unexpected benefits.

In a recent New Yorker piece, Steve Coll, formerly of the Washington Post, says “In the foreseeable future, it seems, there will be two kinds of nonprofit newspapers – those which are deliberately so and those which are reluctantly so.” He makes the case for endowments, using a five percent spend rate as the benchmark for capitalization. A company would need to raise $20 million to support $1 million in operating expenses. That’s a tall order these days, but it beats doing nothing. As Shirky puts it, “You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!” has never been much of a business model.

Whether the affiliate organization is for-profit or non-profit, when a newspaper reaches out to another entity, it practices a corporate form of social media. During the first phase of business-to-business e-commerce in the late Nineties, there was great emphasis on extranets that opened portions of a company's knowledge base to its corporate partners. We are now in the next phase of sharing. New alliances will strengthen mature industries as the "how can I help you" theme of social media takes hold. The publishers who are able to embrace this will be around to reap the benefits.

3. Find a strong technology partner

A few news organizations have opened their databases to Web developers with the hope of inspiring creative new services that deliver a mix of information from various sources. These mashups may start out as experiments, but they’ll be driven by the same innovative forces that caused the disruption in the first place. Most newspapers don’t have the in-house resources to plan and manage such projects, and they certainly don’t have much of a budget for outside consultants.

One source of talent might be the universities, where journalism programs have already embraced the next wave of technologies. Tomorrow’s reporters have no stake in eulogizing a bygone era – they’re too busy training for the future.

Publishers are teaming with technology partners of all sizes. In January, the UK's Trinity Mirror partnered with Pluck, a Texas-based software company, to offer social media tools to readers of its national and local newspapers. Pluck had already partnered with companies such as the Guardian, USA Today, and Reuters, one of its investors. Trinity Mirror will execute its online strategy with the support of what amounts to a consortium of allies.

At the other end of the scale, the New York Times has opened its APIs to a grassroots network of software developers. The NYT Explorer, one of the first applications to access the Times database, was written by the co-founder of a two-man company in Cambridge, MA.

4. Create a Twitter taxonomy

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, but for the moment, establishing a hierarchy of Twitter accounts comes close. Twitter offers a reliable channel for topic-driven interactive messaging between a newspaper and its readers. A tree of accounts covering specific sections, as well as op-ed, community, and other features, can promote citizen reporting and drive user-generated content.

The Chicago Tribune has created a Twitter taxonomy that features Colonel Tribune, a virtual man-about-town who offers political commentary, weather reports, and even an occasional dig at the rival Chicago Sun Times. He shares the News branch of this information tree with more than two dozen editors and reporters whose personal bylines resemble Twitter profiles. The Life & Entertainment branch contains an even wider range of online personalities, and there is even a branch called "The Colonel's friends," a group of ordinary citizens whose Tweets have landed them in the spotlight.

5. Explore micropublishing solutions

Projects like The Printed Blog, which offers aggregations of selected blog content in downloadble PDF and limited distribution print formats, might not be the wave of the future, but they’re examples of the hybrid approach that might work in local markets.

Personalized editions bundling RSS feeds, and limited-run aggregations of book reviews and other endangered sections, are two ideas worth pursuing. The economics of printing are brutal, but there’s room for innovative thinking if the unions will cooperate.

Doing nothing is not an option

Following these five business practices may not solve all the problems. Each newspaper has its own personality, formed by the relationship between its journalists and readers, and governed by forces that extend beyond the marketplace. It’s up to each publisher to consider the options and make decisions. Doing nothing is not an option.

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